Tense Negotiations Inside the Fed Produced Muddled Signals to Markets

By

Jon Hilsenrath

Oct. 7, 2013 10:34 p.m. ET

The Federal Reserve's decision to continue one of the most audacious experiments in monetary history—an $85 billion-a-month bond-buying program designed to boost growth—followed six months of tense negotiations inside the central bank, and a stumbling effort to let the public know what was going on.

A small group of Fed officials has been privately pushing Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke to plan an exit from his signature program, said several people familiar with the closed-door deliberations. But glimmers of a weakening...